The present invention relates to a method of controlling a respirator for treatment of sleep apnea and a device for carrying out the method.
A not insignificant number of people suffer from sleep disorders which have an impact on those people's well-being during the day and which partly have a significant effect on their social and professional efficiency as well as on their quality of life. One of these sleep disorders is sleep apnea, which is primarily treated with the so-called CPAP-therapy (CPAP=Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) by continuously supplying an air stream of a respiration gas to the patient during his sleep via a nasal mask. Via a tube, the mask is connected with a device for respiration comprising a ventilator that generates a gas stream with an overpressure of 5 to 20 mbar.
The gas stream is supplied to the patient either at a constant pressure or it is lowered to a lower pressure level in order to ease the breathing effort of the patient during exhaling. Although sleep apneas occur only briefly and are only a very small portion of the sleeping period, the ventilator in both methods runs during the entire sleeping period (night) and thus renders the acceptance of this sleep apnea treatment difficult.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve the CPAP therapy to become patient friendly.